Sorrow
by artigiano
Summary: Angst with a happy ending. DL, oneshot.


**This story was inspired by a scene from the movie _For Love of the Game_ when he opens a bathroom drawer after Jane left him and he finds her perfume. Also inspired by two quotes from _Mr. and Mrs. Smith: You looked like Christmas morning_ and_ I guess that's what happens in the end, you start thinking about the beginning_. So there ya go!**

**Okay, okay, I know I should be working on _Officer Involved Shooting, _but I've just kinda hit some writer's block with it. Plus this idea has been rolling around in my head for a while, and I just needed to get it out here before I burst:) But I promise that I'll have the next chapter of _Officer Involved Shooting _up soon:) **

**Again, the ruler doesn't seem to working, so you'll have to deal with my homemade dividers. ;)**

**Oh, and don't forget to review! **

---

The fight had escalated from just bickering to full out yelling and screaming by the time that they had gotten back to their apartment. The next half hour was spent with Lindsay packing her bags and Danny screaming at her to stop.

"So I guess this is goodbye." Her voice was cold and hard, but Danny could hear remorse and pain also. When the man behind her didn't move, she walked to the door with her hand on the handle. She stood, just waiting for Danny to say something, to apologize, to make her return.

"Montana…Lindsay…" He stopped, knowing there was nothing else that he could say, no words that could fix this.

"That's what I thought." Lindsay yanked the door open and stepped outside. "Goodbye." The tears that she had been trying so hard to hold back flowed freely now from her eyes, and there was nothing she could do to stop them.

"Linds…" But the door was closing, closing on another chapter of their lives.

---

That night, Danny sat in their lonely apartment, wondering where his Montana was right now. That same girl was sitting in a hotel room, tears falling from her red and puffy eyes.

As they both sat in their perspective rooms, neither could exactly pinpoint what had started their argument. Maybe it was something to do with the officer that had flirted with Lindsay, or the woman that had batted her eyelashes at Danny the previous morning. Maybe it was both. Or maybe it was something else entirely. Maybe it was the stress of the shifts they had worked, or the cases that they had seen.

Before the night was done, however, evil words had been spoken, words that couldn't be taken back. And before the night would be over, it wouldn't just be Lindsay that had tears running down her cheeks.

---

The next day at work was solemn at best. The two avoided each other like the plague, though none of their co-workers could understand why. Their relationship had been kept under the radar because they were afraid that if Mac found out, he would split them up. They were both so in love they didn't know if they could handle it. But now…

It was the fact that they both _knew _they loved each other that hurt the most; knowing that they were no longer together was even more painful. Knowing that they were never going to kiss again, never going to steal each other away from work and make out passionately in a supply closet. Everything was different now.

Flack tried to get Danny to tell him what was wrong, but Danny jus shut down. The only time that he got any emotion out of the young CSI was when he mentioned talking to Lindsay. The pain flashed through his eyes, and then it was gone.

Stella had no more luck Lindsay. She caught her brunette friend in the locker room, eyes tired and gloomy. It was enough to break Stella's heart. But as soon as she asked the petite girl what was wrong, she too closed up. Nothing was coming out of her.

This cycle of two gloomy CSIs avoiding each other continued for some weeks. They other on the team grew tired of this routine, but nothing would bring the pair out of their funk. And still none of them knew exactly what happened- they all had their speculations of course, but no one knew for certain.

Mac tried to talk to them, even, but it didn't do any good. They both told him they were fine, gave him a fake smile, and left to do their respective tasks. It was a hopeless case, and slowly the rest of the team felt their spirit drain as well. Without the energy and liveliness of the two youngsters, everyone was more depressed. The team just wasn't the same.

---

It was exactly a month after their fight that Danny found her perfume bottle. As he was looking for something in his bathroom drawer, a pink bottle rolled around and caught his attention. Picking it up, he removed the cap and breathed in deeply. The scent was so familiar to him, so comforting and sweet. Everything about Lindsay was captured in that scent, everything that was good and perfect.

Her smell had worn off his pillows, and so he took the bottle and sprayed his bed with the sweet smelling fragrance. Breathing in deeply, he was assaulted with the memory of their time together and the passion that they had once shared.

His mind was going crazy with all the thoughts of Lindsay, he reached a decision; one that he should have made long ago.

He went to her new apartment, the one he knew she had just started renting. He knew that she was probably holding out hope that they would reconcile- that she would be able to move back in- but it seemed hat now she had given up. Maybe, just maybe, she would come back to him.

He knocked on the door in the same rhythm that he always had when they lived together: two knocks, wait a second and then three more. His heart beating wildly, he hoped that she would open up.

---

Lindsay looked around her new home and tried to push back the tears that she was growing so accustomed to. She had been living here for just over two weeks, and it still felt so empty. She had gotten so used to living with someone, having someone to go home to, that her new apartment was so lonely.

She had finally given up the ridiculous dream of Danny trying to make her come back, and so she had left the haven of the hotel and started renting an apartment again. Her days were filled only with work and nothing else. She would sometimes venture out and go to a bar, but would turn down every man that tried to hit on her. None of them were Danny.

She was drowning in her sorrow when suddenly she heard a knock on her door. _Danny's knock. _But that didn't make sense…what would Danny be doing here?

Shaking her head, she realized that someone had probably just knocked on her door, and her Danny-muddled mind made it out to sound like his knock.

She stood up, and wiped away her tears. Standing on her tiptoes, she looked through her peephole, and almost gasped- it was indeed Danny standing outside her door, holding something in his hands. Something pink.

Opening the door slowly, she tried her best to look angry. "What do you want?" Instead of sounding angry, her sentence sounded tired and weary.

"Can I come in?" She didn't say anything, but moved aside to let him in, not realizing that he too sounded upset.

"What do you want Danny?" She knew she sounded impolite, but she couldn't help it. How was she supposed to move on if he kept coming back and haunting her?

"We…" He paused, and tears gathered in his eyes. She was shocked- Danny had never cried before, at least not in front of her.

Wiping his eyes, he pulled the bottle he had carried in his hand out from behind his back, and Lindsay recognized it as her perfume. She had thought she had lost it, but apparently she had just left it at their- his- place. It was the only perfume that she would wear, the only scent that she liked, and she had missed using it.

"I found this in our bathroom drawer." She noted that he said "our bathroom", not "my bathroom." A little bit of hope flickered in her mind. "Your smell had worn out of our bed, and I couldn't smell you anymore. I couldn't remember your scent, and it bothered me. I should have been able to remember the scent of the woman I love." _Love. Not _loved_, but love. _Lindsay felt happier than she had in a long time. "I sprayed it on the bed, but it wasn't you. I…" He trailed off, willing the tears not to come.

Lindsay started to speak, but he cut her off. "But the perfume started an avalanche of memories to start. I guess that's what happens in the end, you start thinking about the beginning. And I have been thinking about the beginning, and how great it was. How in love we were. But I remember before that, I remember before we became involved. I remember seeing you the first day at the zoo. You looked like Christmas morning to me, and I fell for you right than and there." Screw it, the tears were coming. "I wanted to hate you, to loathe you for taking Aiden's place, but I couldn't. You were sweet and smart, and so tempting. I loved everything about you, how different you were. You weren't Aiden, but I didn't care. You were something else. And I loved it."

Finally, Danny looked up at her, and she could see all the emotions that were raging inside of him. "I want to be like the beginning again. I want us to be happy again, together. Because I still love you. I always have and I always will."

He sat down on her new couch, and silence filled the home. "Oh, Danny…" Lindsay walked over and sat next to him.

"I've thought about moving so many times, because everything in this city reminds me of you. But I couldn't bring myself to do it because than I wouldn't have anything to remind me of you. Because I need you, and I love you."

She placed her fingers under his chin, forcing him to look at her. "I'm sorry." His words were quiet, but Lindsay could tell they were heartfelt.

"I am too." These words, too, were truthful, Danny could tell. He looked deep into the eyes of the woman that he loved, and knew that everything would work out just fine.

---

**Who doesn't love angst with a happy ending:) Please don't forget to review!**

**Charlotte**


End file.
